After they thwarted the City’s attempt to shove us into an Advantage plan, our weird union even removed its support for these things, and both mayors since have shown little interest in pursuing that matter further. The organization also got us some relief from the Senior Pay copays for a couple of years. Bravo. Thank you.
With interest, then, I just watched the interview that the organization’s lawyer, Jake Gardner, just did with RTC’s Arthur Goldstein regarding Intro 1008. That’s the local bill to amend NYC’s administrative code to protect health insurance coverage and contributions for Medicare-eligible retirees and their dependents. The RTC endorsed this bill “as Written,” and Arthur, one of its officers, has already told us what he thinks of the UFT’s position on this bill: “Unity now wants us to believe that they support 1008. If you believe that, I suggest you drag a rotary phone to the supermarket and try to exchange it for groceries.”
Around 14:00, he reminds us that the people who run the union get two pensions – from the City and from the union. It’s not apparent that these people understand the financial strains on retirees that have only one pension, which in many cases isn’t even all that big.
I love the point Gardner makes around 12:30 about the $15 copays – that the more doctors retirees see, the more copays they rack up. “They’re forcing the sickest, most vulnerable group to shoulder the greatest burden ... I don’t think that’s fair. That seems anti-union to me.” He also believes the union’s bringing up the Taylor Law isn’t even a good faith argument, that it’s just a pretext for hiding its true position, that they want to be able to sell off retiree benefits to benefit their active members (around 18:00).
But all this is not the real reason for this post, which is to object ONCE AGAIN to the annoying misuse of Medicare terminology by people who should know better.
Near the very beginning of the video, Arthur introduces Jake saying he’s “a big part of why we still have Medicare.”
This is ENTIRELY UNTRUE.
As good a lawyer as Jake is, he has nothing to do with our keeping our Medicare.
Part A and Part B Medicare are not going away even if the city stops giving us any retiree health insurance whatsoever.
We will always have Medicare Part A if we sign up for it with Soc. Security. It’s funded by what we’ve paid into the system through payroll and self-employment taxes.We will always have Medicare Part B as long as we continue to pay our Part B premiums. Part B is funded by those premiums, deductibles, penalties, and government sources.
Saying that the City or the union is working to take away our Medicare is uneducated and possibly a way of rallying the troops. What’s under threat is Senior Care, but Senior Care is not Medicare. Senior Care is only the supplementary coverage that pays for what Medicare has not been designed to cover in the first place.
Senior Care resembles a comprehensive Medigap, a federally designed supplemental plan that people who don’t have plans from their unions or employers get to pay the bits that Original (or Traditional) Medicare doesn’t cover.
There are notable differences between Senior Care and private Medigaps. It has a $50 deductible and annoying $15 copays. That deductible and those copays are “negotiated” bits, they don’t exist in private Medigaps.
The Emblem/Anthem coverage we have with Senior Care is a kind of PPO. PPOs are negotiated plans for the delivery of Medicare and the leftover amounts it doesn’t cover. The supplementary Part B coverage we get with Senior Care is labelled a “GHI PPO” on our individualized Medicare.gov accounts, and if you look at the Anthem card (relating to Part A), you’ll see the little suitcase logo actually declaring this coverage a “PPO.” This kind of PPO does not have middlemen entities managing our benefits. Medicare pays its share, and Senior Care picks up the rest.
What’s confusing is that we’re more familiar with the other type of PPO, the kind of Advantage plan the City was trying to put us into. These Advantage plan PPOs have elements we absolutely detest – prior authorizations, denials, networks, verticalization, and middlemen control. It’s privatized health insurance: the government sends companies stipends from various funds (Medicare, what Social Security collects from us in premiums, and other sources) to manage our health care benefits.
It’s infuriating to hear people so committed to fighting for our current health insurance arrangements imply that the city is working to take away our Medicare.
No one who keeps up with their Part B premiums is “losing” their Medicare.
Even if the City took away Senior Care and all the other plans they offer, we’d still have Original Medicare. It’s not going anywhere unless Congress kills the whole damn thing nationwide.
